Modern computing and communication technologies are convergent in a way that has evolved whole new cultures of interpersonal and human-machine interaction. Every aspect of our lives is touched by the new technologies, from a network of embedded processors in our cars, to our cars being networked with our phones, our satellite navigation systems, and other vehicles; with our students spending more time communicating, learning and playing by electronic means than face to face; with our media becoming increasingly technological and our social media leading to a cultural revolution in human interaction; with our supermarkets knowing more about our buying habits than we do; with our society, government and commerce facing more and more challenges from the speed of new technology and the associated social, privacy and security issues.
At the same time technology is not just becoming more ubiquitous, but more intelligent and more autonomous.
The Centre for Knowledge and Interaction Technologies (CKIT) directly faces the challenges of this convergence of human and machine interaction modalities, and contributes to the development of the theory, practice and tools applicable to modern, knowledge-based, data-rich, human-centric systems. As an interdisciplinary and enabling collection of technologies, it both supports activities in other Flinders research areas while at the same time has its own intellectual identity. Each of our research programs addresses at least one of the opportunities, challenges or risks that our technological advancement in communication and computing has brought. We are interested in every aspect of how our technology affects human-machine and human computer interaction, and how our understanding of communication and society, knowledge and thought, is changing as we enter the age of the ubiquitous intelligent machine.
